[Onkel Neal]

Smart move. Times have changed, tech has changed. Military is always fighting the last war. Now, hopefully the govt will reduce the defense budget accordingly.

Defense Department study calls for cutting 2 of the US Navy’s aircraft carriers

An internal Office of the Secretary of Defense assessment calls for the Navy to cut two aircraft carriers from its fleet, freeze the large surface combatant fleet of destroyers and cruisers around current levels and add dozens of unmanned or lightly manned ships to the inventory, according to documents obtained by Defense News.

The study calls for a fleet of nine carriers, down from the current fleet of 11, and for 65 unmanned or lightly manned surface vessels.

The Navy is currently developing a family of unmanned surface vessels that are intended to increase the offensive punch for less money, while increasing the number of targets the Chinese military would have to locate in a fight.

That’s a push that earned the endorsement of the Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday in comments late last year.

“I know that the future fleet has to include a mix of unmanned,” Gilday said. “We can’t continue to wrap $2 billion ships around 96 missile tubes in the numbers we need to fight in a distributed way, against a potential adversary that is producing capability and platforms at a very high rate of speed. We have to change the way we are thinking.”